Digital advisory service and wealth management firm Personal Capital is closing out 2016 by adding another $25 million to the $75 million in equity investment the company took home from IGM Financial in May. Today’s funding was part of a contingency from investor IGM Financial that stated Personal Capital had to reach a certain growth milestone by Q2 of 2017. Since the California-based company exceeded the specified growth target, the funds were distributed early, just in time for the new year. This closes Personal Capital’s Series E round, increases its 2016 funding to $100 million, and boosts its total funding to just over $175 million.

“IGM Financial has been a great investor,” said Bill Harris, CEO of Personal Capital. “Over the past six months, we’ve been able to grow marketing, staffing, and offerings to our users and clients. With the final $25 million in investment secured, we look forward to seeing even more growth as we help more families manage their financial lives.” The company used the initial $75 million to increase its marketing efforts and hire new staff across its offices in San Carlos, San Francisco, and Denver.

The new investment lifts Personal Capital’s valuation to around $500 million. That’s double what the company’s valuation was after its Series D funding round closed in 2014 and $200 million shy of competitors’ valuations. Betterment and Wealthfront (pure roboadvisory plays), as well as SigFig (a hybrid roboadvisor) each have valuations of $700 million.

In addition to the funding from IGM Financial, Personal Capital has received a $25 million line of credit from Silicon Valley Bank. With regard to the credit, Mike Armsby, CFO of Personal Capital says it will help the company “spur rapid growth in the New Year.”

Personal Capital delivers financial planning and investment portfolio management services. The company combines high tech with high touch by blending a non-biased, algorithmic investing approach and conversations with real, human advisors via video chat. Personal Capital has added $1.5 billion in AUM in 2016. This represents 80% growth in less than 12 months and brings the company’s total AUM to $3.4 billion. In addition, Personal Capital offers a free, account aggregation tool to help its 1.3 million registered users view all of their accounts in one place.

Personal Capital will show how by enabling both the user and her advisor to see the same holistic financial picture, we have transformed the traditional “opening and funding of an account” transaction into a natural conversation about the best way to implement a financial plan.

Why it’s a must-see
If you are interested in this user story then join us: As a FinTech developer, I want to build a product that leverages all of users’ financial, goals and profile data and make their account opening process conversational and collaborative.

Personal Capital is a next generation financial advisor, named by CNBC as a “Top Disruptor” for our innovative approach to wealth management. Our award-winning free tools and mobile apps give clients a complete picture of their net worth, and we offer comprehensive financial advisory services previously only available to the ultra-wealthy. This combination of high-tech and high-touch drives our ability to deliver truly personal and objective wealth management for the Internet and mobile age. We believe this is the best way to empower individuals and their money.

“Data-Driven Retirement Planning:
Presenting the inner workings of a truly data-driven retirement planner created by leveraging user’s aggregated financial data, enhanced by machine learning and personalized by user’s life events and goals. We will discuss how the investing and financial planning strategies are triggered to update as the user moves through different stages of her life and makes changes to her spending and saving behaviors. Finally, we will show how this functionality is visualized through a UI that makes sophisticated algorithms and complex data easy to use for any user, regardless of investing knowledge.”

Key takeaways

How we employ machine learning techniques to forecast growth of a user’s portfolio and
estimate available retirement spending

How we create a connected ecosystem that allows a user and his/her dedicated advisor to collaborate on the same financial data and retirement plan

How we use AWS infrastructure to supercharge our data-driven retirement planner

Presenters:

Fritz Robbins, CTOLinkedIn | @fritz_robbins | fritz@personalcapital.com
Fritz Robbins is the CTO of Personal Capital, responsible for definition and execution of the technology roadmap and leadership of the technology teams. He has previously led technology and engineering efforts at Wells Fargo, Excite@Home, RSA Security, and elsewhere.

Ehsan Lavassani, VP Engineering & Founding EngineerLinkedIn | @EhsanLavassani | ehsan@personalcapital.com
Ehsan Lavassani is Personal Capital’s VP Engineerying and its first employee. He architected Personal Capital’s core systems from ground up and formed its world-class engineering team. Previously, he was one of the main architects of RSA’s Adaptive Authentication system.